Prime
Museveni injects Shs1.2b in ghetto youths’ Saccos
President Museveni waves as he arrives at Kololo ceremonial grounds in Kampala to launch Saccos for ghetto youth on December 20, 2023. PHOTO/ ABUBAKER LUBOWA
What you need to know:
- The beneficiary Saccos include Kampala-Kisenyi III, Kasangati Community, Nansana Division, Makindye Youths with Skills, Makindye East, Masajja para Zone, Kasokoso, Kawempe South, Kawempe North, Rubaga Kakeka, Nakawa Division and Mukono Industrial Area.
- Mr Museveni’s idea of diving more into ghetto communities came shortly after the 2021 general election where the Opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) party led by Mr Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, defeated the National Resistance Movement (NRM) in the central region, both in presidential and parliamentary polls.
President Museveni has injected a tune of Shs1.2b into 12 different savings and credit co-operatives (Saccos) belonging to youths living in the slums of Kampala City, Wakiso, and Mukono districts.
During the official launch of ghetto youth saccos in Kampala yesterday, Mr Museveni said youths can be productive and elevate themselves from poverty if they deliberately engage in the four major productive sectors including; commercial agriculture, factories and industrialisation, services, and ICT and innovations.
“As the government, we shall educate you as well as give you startup capital. I don’t want you to be there doing nothing on the false statement that there is no money yet we have plenty,” he said.
Ghetto youths gathered at Kololo ceremonial grounds in Kampala as they waited for President Museveni to launch their Saccos on December 20, 2023
The President told the ghetto youths that he would give their Saccos additional funding after they effectively utilise the Shs100m startup.
“You lodged your complaints that the people in offices have been ‘eating’ your money and now I decided to let you be in charge by forming Saccos within yourselves and we support it,” he said.
Why reach out?
Mr Museveni’s idea of diving more into ghetto communities came shortly after the 2021 general election where the Opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) party led by Mr Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, defeated the National Resistance Movement (NRM) in the central region, both in presidential and parliamentary polls.
Mr Kyagulanyi’s NUP scooped 53 out of the total 105 electoral areas in the highly competitive polls, leaving NRM in the second position with 31 MP seats followed by the Forum for Democratic Change with three, Democratic party and independent getting seven areas each.
Upon this background, Mr Museveni directed several officials, including Brig Christopher Damulira, the director of crime intelligence at police whom he asked to go in these communities and investigate his loss.
Brig Damulira in his speech yesterday informed the President that they implemented his directive in March last year and conducted a survey.
He said they discovered that the ghetto youths had been rendered poor and unemployed which gave chance for people he described as opportunists to use them and divert them.
“We found out that most ghetto youths were unpatriotic and thus easy to be used by opportunists to engage in criminality so they needed a liberation which we did by starting to zone them,” he said.
Brig Damulira said they mobilised 120,000 ghetto youths from 216 zones, who later formed ghetto structures that have since birthed the Saccos.
“Starting March last year, we collaborated with other state agencies like State House and started offering help to these youths which has transformed them,” he added,
A section of youths asked the President to continuously bridge the gap that had been created by top officials by extending support directly to them.
